People movers such as escalators or moving walkways are generally configured so that the steps or treads move from an entrance landing to an exit landing, when transporting passengers, along a first path of travel, and then they reverse their direction of movement to return from the exit landing to the entrance landing along a second path of travel which lies directly beneath the first path of travel. They also generally include moving handrails mounted on step-flanking balustrades, which handrails follow somewhat similar transport and return paths of travel. When the handrails move from the transport to return paths of travel, and vice versa, they pass over curved newels at the ends of the balustrades. When the handrails move along a generally rectilinear path on the balustrades, they merely slide over fixed tracks mounted on the balustrades, but when the handrails pass over the newels which are curved, the prior art indicates that there would be too much friction generated if a fixed track were used, thus they must pass over a rolling guide. In the prior art, two different approaches have been used to guide the handrails around the curved newels. The first solution to the problem involved using a large rotating wheel or pulley at each newel. The wheels were hidden in the balustrade housing and the handrail passed from the track onto the wheel, and thence around the newel. U.S. Pat. No. 2,632,550, granted Mar. 24, 1953 to C. Panter; and U.S. Pat. No. 2,669,339, granted Feb. 16, 1954 to H. E. Hansen illustrate this solution to the problem. This solution was acceptable for earlier escalators which were relatively bulky mechanisms, but cannot be used in the streamlined, more modern escalators or walkways which have thin balustrades, often made of glass, or some other transparent material.
In the streamlined modern escalators and moving walkways, the prior art solution to the problem involves the use of a plurality of spaced roller bearings mounted on the handrail guide rail along the newel portion thereof. The handrail rides on the roller bearings during passage over the newels. This solution is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,283,878, granted Nov. 8, 1966 to L. R. Rissler; U.S. Pat. No. 3,442,367, granted May 6, 1969 to D. E. Van Voorhis; U.S. Pat. No. 3,595,364, granted Jul. 27, 1971 to K. Schoneweiss, et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 3,623,589, granted Nov. 30, 1971 to E. D. Johnson, et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 4,273,232, granted Jun. 16, 1981 to C. Saito, et al; and Swiss Patent No. 426,148 dated Dec. 15, 1966. A problem which arises in connection with this solution concerns the use of the roller bearings. The roller bearings used employ a roller system which has a central ball roller set and flanking pin roller sets. The ball rollers are about 3 mm in diameter and the pin rollers are about 1.5 mm in diameter. In a standard escalator newel, the ball rollers rotate at about 100 rpm, and the pin rollers rotate faster. This high speed of rotation results in high heat generation and high levels of noise. It is also apparent that the rollers in the roller bearings are delicate and are known to require replacement at an undesirable frequency.